WNYT.com

NY Legislature predicts early state budget OK

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York's Legislature, which had been notorious for decades of passing late state budgets, now expects to pass the earliest spending plan since 1983.

Senate and Assembly leaders released a plan Thursday that would result in a budget adoption on March 21. The schedule includes public hearings on the $143 billion budget proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The budget is due by April 1.

Early budgets have become more routine since Gov. David Paterson seized on a law that allows a governor to impose his or her budget on the Legislature if it doesn't act by April 1. That leaves lawmakers the choice of accepting the governor's budget or shutting down government.

The 2007 budget reform act was supposed to assure on-time budgets, but that law has been routinely ignored.

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